Pro-Life and Rush Limbaugh

In 1991, when I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area from San Diego, my
friend from college, Chris Hull (attending grad school at UC Berkeley) told
me my pro-life views probably wouldn't be accepted here.

I countered that there are liberal pro-life groups, like Feminists For Life.

Chris reacted with disbelief, mimicking Richard Nixon leaving the White
House in disgrace in 1974, his hands outstretched, giving the
"V-for-Victory" sign... as if by referring to pro-life liberals I was
describing some nonexistent "silent majority."

In early 1992, I contacted Feminists For Life, and told them I'm into animal
rights and pro-life feminism. Feminists For Life gave me contact information
for SF Bay Area residents Rose Evans and Ruth Enero.

I was told Rose Evans, editor and publisher of Harmony: Voices for a Just
Future, a "consistent-ethic" periodical on the religious left, is supportive
of animal issues.

Rose sent me back issues of Harmony, and some pro-life liberal bumper
stickers. When I asked her about the Seamless Garment Network, referred to
throughout Harmony, she explained:

The Seamless Garment Network (SGN) is a coalition of peace and justice
organizations on the religious left. The SGN takes a stand against war,
abortion, poverty, racism, the arms race, the death penalty and euthanasia.
Animal rights, like ecology, nuclear power, gun control, or the drug war, is
a topic of serious discussion among SGN members. His Holiness the Dalai Lama
has signed the SGN Mission Statement.

"We are committed to the protection of life, which is threatened in today's
world by war, abortion, poverty, racism, the arms race, the death penalty
and euthanasia.

"We believe these issues are linked under a consistent ethic of life. We
challenge those working on all or some of these issues to maintain a
cooperative spirit of peace, reconciliation, and respect in protecting the
unprotected."

When I attended a pro-life meeting in Pleasanton, CA, I was surrounded by
conservatives. They reacted with mild skepticism when I said I see many
parallels between animal rights and prenatal rights (thoroughly documented
in my 2006 book, The Liberal Case Against Abortion).

They could tell right away that I'm a pro-life liberal. They were all
praising Rush Limbaugh, who I'd never heard of before, and saying, with mild
amusement and mild sarcasm, "Oh, you'd like him..."

One woman said she was home-schooling her kids, distrustful of the public
schools, and said she was pleased by Rush Limbaugh's referring to feminists
as "feminazis."

When I told her it's hard to trust Bush Sr. on abortion as being genuinely
pro-life as he ran for president in 1980 as a pro-choice Republican, saying
he disagreed with Ronald Reagan about Roe v. Wade, etc., she replied, "I'm
voting for Pat Buchanan."

"I couldn't do that," I responded, and said instead, "Jerry Brown. If he
were pro-life, he'd be perfect."

One gentleman was a high school biology teacher and clearly a conservative.
When I asked him how he deals with teaching his students evolution, he said
he teaches evolution, but points out the flaws in evolutionary theory as
well.

But he said with regret that America has been on a moral decline since
prayers were removed from the public schools.

I was thinking to myself, "My God, there are actually people who hold these
views!"

As I was leaving the pro-life meeting, the woman who said she was
home-schooling her kids and a friend of hers saw me near my car, adorned
with pro-life liberal bumper stickers (thanks to Rose!), and said, "Oh, we
wondered whose car that was. Liberal and pro-life bumper stickers."

I said, "Haven't you heard of the Seamless Garment Network?" (even though I
hadn't heard about it myself until earlier in the year!)

She responded, "Yes, we've heard of it. It was started by some leftist
Cardinal. We refer to it as the 'straightjacket network.'"

"Seamy!" said Ruth Enero, in a phone conversation years later, saying that's
how one of her relatives referred to the SGN.

In 1993, when I was working at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as
a contract employee (fortunately, none of my work was defense-related!), my
friend Terry Burt, a Vietnam veteran and a pro-choice Democrat, liked to
listen to Rush Limbaugh, even though he disagreed with Rush Limbaugh on
abortion... Terry considered opposition to abortion to be an extremely
conservative position... and couldn't understand my being a pro-life
Democrat!

“I have always thought it peculiar how the liberal and conservative
philosophies have lined up on the abortion issue,” observed pro-life
feminist Rosemary Bottcher, in the Tallahassee Democrat. "It seemed to me
that liberals traditionally have cared about others and about human rights
while conservatives have cared about themselves and property rights.
Therefore, one would expect liberals to be defending the unborn and
conservatives to be encouraging their destruction."

The only frustration I have with the left, therefore, is its failure to see
abortion as a secular human rights issue…especially those who claim to
espouse nonviolence, e.g., are antinuclear or antiwar, or support nonviolent
civil disobedience.

During the spring of 1989, for example, a huge pro-choice rally in
Washington, DC was endorsed by the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for
Nonviolent Studies in Atlanta. I found this incredibly Orwellian! It’s like
many on the left have trouble seeing abortion as a secular human rights
issue; seeing it as an act of violence against the unborn.

Similarly, in the mid-‘90s, a group of various recording artists released an
album benefiting the abortion rights movement, entitled Born to Choose. The
title also struck me as Orwellian: We are “born to choose” whether or not
someone else may be “born” to choose.

And in 2007, I saw a car with two bumper stickers: one of them read “Create
Peace” and the other read “Pro-Choice.” The owner of the car apparently saw
no contradiction between the two slogans.

If pro-lifers really want to end abortion, opposition is going to have to
come from across the political spectrum, and not just from the far right.

Some pro-life liberals who immediately come to my mind are former Village
Voice columnist Nat Hentoff -- a self-described “liberal Jewish atheist”;
writer and former Washington Post columnist Colman McCarthy; the late
governor Robert Casey of Pennsylvania; and Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan 2004
Nobel Peace Prize winner, human rights and women's rights activist, and
environmentalist. Of course, I can’t forget Carol Crossed of Democrats For
Life, either, who was kind enough to write the foreword to my own 2006 book
on the subject.